this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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They aren’t as bad as I thought they’d be but some of them really are too combative. I’ve seen them get into arguments with people for not being the correct type of left I don’t know how to respond to them because I’m not a polisci or world history major.
I’m also pretty tired of those huge emojis. The pig butt thing was funny maybe once. I don’t know what the right answer is I’d just wish they would chill.
The emote problem seems like it'd be really annoying, I've stopped using them when I'm not on hexbear communities (though sometimes I forget what instance I'm on sorry in advance).
As for the "wrong type of leftist" sort of stuff, hexbear tries to be a big tent community for leftists (we've got all sorts over there although it's admittedly heavily leaning towards marxist-leninists) and it tends to be a much more welcoming site outside of those overcrowded threads on active where everyone is arguing.
Hopefully the chaos will die down soon enough.
Can you help me see the appeal of hexbear? I took a look before knowing any of this stuff about the instance(saw it in everything and had a look around). Reading how some users describe it (pro-trans, inclusive, not a US echo chamber) and being LGBT, having a trans husband and poly, and finds pro capitalism stuff kinda tiring I thought it would be a good fit for me but...as I look at posts on hot and the comments I see a lot that makes me uneasy.
Comments about how a user was talking with "euro trash". The impression that if I'm not pro Russia then I must be pro America is something I see in the few Russia/Ukraine posts I read through.
Like..I'm very much anti capitalism and while I don't know how far left I go I can't understand how the community can say Ukraine should surrender to save lives and not become a US puppet when surely they'd just become a Russian puppet instead?
If what hexbear users say about the friendliness and inclusiveness it sounds like a group of people I'd love to chat with, but with what I see when I go there myself I just don't see it. Yeah I haven't seen any antilgbt of users but that's kinda it
The popular consensus on Hexbear is anti-NATO, rather than pro-Russia. If this is a sticking point for you, I don't think you will agree much with the average users on geopolitics.
But, as long as you stay out of the news megathread, you likely won't see much discussion of the war on Hexbear.
like others have said, the common understanding is more anti-NATO than pro-Russia, but if you're on the other end of it, like getting into an argument with a Hexbear, we're all going to have a pretty united front and not criticize eachother. That's not to say there aren't a lot of heated debate within the Hexbear community, that happens a lot. Esp on geopolitics.
from the perspective of the average westerner, who doesn't really think of these things, yeah its very weird. The appeal I think lies in the incivility. These are people who are tired of civility-politics that dress up all the monstrous atrocities committed by the same people we're all supposed to look up to as leaders. so the behavior I think is largely cathartic.
Looking at the big picture, I think to sum up the ukraine take that's the most common on hexbear is: Ukraine cannot possibly win despite what we've all been lead to believe, the people who suffer most in any war is the working class (the people we sympathize with) so it's better for a peace settlement to end the suffering, even if that means Russia "wins". There's a lot more history to the situation than that
While I agree with a lot of what you said (apart from Ukraine not having a chance, I'm not an expert in the matter (and surely it's their choice?)) And I see the benefit of some cathartic release and generally having a space to complain/rant (god knows I've done it many times in more private spaces) I dont see the appeal to anybody who is not already very far down their leftist journey and worry it actively pushes people away. And hey maybe that's intentional, maybe hexbear only wants these views but I get the impression from the comments defending the instance in other instance communities that this isn't true?
If it's intentional then I'm all for you having that space, benefits of the multitude of instances. That reminds me I need to create a new account elsewhere anyway
Fair enough! I'll just leave you with this:
You do have to wonder, yeah, is it their choice? Countries like the US, Russia and China can make "choices" but in geopolitics I'd say smaller countries like Ukraine kind of don't. Maybe they can choose to be in Russian-sphere or EU-sphere, but they certainly can't choose to be neutral. The powers that be: the US as the global hegemony, and Russia, the local regional hegemony are going to try their best to make those choices for them. It's real bad
Genuinely I think Zelensky had promises made to him by the US/NATO about how much support he was going to get which the US reneged, and the far-right elements of his government and military he's not able to control- so even him I don't think has much choice. I do have (limited) sympathy for the guy. I think most people on Hexbear share a similar understanding, it's def not a chauvinistic pro-Russia thing. Esp given how transphobic the Russian state is, you're not going to see any touting of that as a good thing on hexbear.
So in your opinion, what would a good alternative have been? If Ukraine had simply said "here ya go" and became part of russia, then what? Russia stops there? They finally begin to become the global opponent that can defeat the usa and institute communism? Because last I checked, Putin help execute a bunch of those back in the day, and he seems to currently be the one in charge. I'm being genuine by the way, I just can't comprehend how leftist folx can endorse like, a strongman leader who makes a show of invading another country?
I'm not the one you were talking to, but I think most Hexbears would prefer to see a negotiated settlement of some kind that brought an end to the war, one that also stopped the killing of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine that has been ongoing since 2014, and precluded Ukraine joining NATO (because Ukraine joining would complete NATO's encirclement of Russia, something that Russia has been seeking to prevent for decades now, and which would dramatically increase nuclear tensions). I don't think any Hexbears actually like Putin at all, and even "endorse" is an awfully strong word. And certainly no one thinks Putin's Russia is going to institute communism. We just oppose the Western party line on the war, which gets us cast as pro-Russia (due to black-and-white thinking) when we're totally not.
The standard Western position, by contrast, comes across to us as bloodthirsty, calling as it does for an extended conflict which will indefinitely prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people. The West seems eager to spend Ukrainian lives for the sake of suppressing a geopolitical rival, not for humanitarian reasons but for economic ones, and so we stand against that.
Should the people in the areas that voted to secede from Ukraine after the gov't banned their language and supported military units shelling them right up until the day of the invasion have a choice?
But regarding the rest of Ukraine, every gun, weapon, and bomb we've sent there is a bad day for someone, statistically mostly civilians. They're not fighting for freedom, they're being sacrificed so that the Ukrainian land, gov't, and businesses are owned by westerners instead of Russians. The only correct position is to oppose your own nation's involvement.
No, its good to be Anti russia, you should just also be anti NATO because neither one is on our side
for what it's worth, this user was contacted by a site mod and their wording was corrected. One thing that Hexbear explicitly stands against is dehumanizing language, most of the time you'll have your post removed, or cop a ban for it if you don't stop.
If Crimea from 2014 - 2022 is what being "a Russian puppet" entails, i.e. being Russian citizens, that's a lot better than how being a US puppet goes. Unless you mean western Ukraine since Putin probably does not want to annex it anyway, but we can get some idea of what being "a Russian puppet" by that definition would be from looking at the terms of Minsk II, which seem much less bad to me than being a US puppet.
Tend to agree. Like this post , where in the lower paragraphs the admin has a, I'll call it an interesting take on Crimea in 2014.
Just sort by Hot. :)
You're gaslighting when you say it's a "big tent community for leftists". I block any Hexbear community I see as it's only people trying to "dunk on libs" while also saying they should "get up against the wall".
You're part of a toxic community and then come here and try to paint it as peaches and rainbows.
Hexbear is one of the biggest left unity instances on lemmy
Oh, well that’s nice to hear. Whatever I saw was probably an exception, and not the rule then.
😔